Tag: Pride of Nuffield

As we are totally new to this 360° photo and video lark it’s time to do a test. Of course we already know that we can get the photographs to work directly on our blog but unsure if the video will as I suspect you may actually have to view it directly in YouTube but let’s see!

The video below was taken when we took went out for a walk with Martin and Sarah from Narrowboat Pride of Nuffield along with their 3 greyhounds. If the video looks bizarre or you can’t move around the scene then it will need to be viewed in YouTube, if it all looks OK then you can use your fingers or mouse to move around the scene.

UPDATE: It works for me on the Mac but not directly on mobile, you have to actually click it to watch directly in YouTube for it to work on iOS, no idea about Android users but presume the same – this is only a low resolution version due to me saving data but in future I will upload full 4K ones from the pubs free wifi

If it looks weird and you can’t move around simply click the video and it will launch in the YouTube app – you will then be able to experience 360° video in all it’s glory!

Well here we are, the very last day of 2016 looking forward to another wonderful year in 2017 messing around on our narrowboat! As the ice had finally melted we thought it a good idea to have a little potter along the Grand Union Canal up to Heyford Fields to turn around, a round trip of about 2hrs. We wanted to end up back with our friends on narrowboat ‘Pride of Nuffield’ moored stern to stern to make the food and drink transfers easier for tonights festivities. Although it was a bit chilly it was a nice little cruise and no matter how many times we chug along this stretch there is always something new to see on the cut.

After our turn at Heyford Fields I needed to pop inside for a wee and to stoke the fire so the good lady took over the controls. When I returned around five minutes later I was greeted by excess exhaust smoke and a lack of power! I was in a quandary here as I did not really want to pull over just in case we could not get her started again so elected to plod along at tick-over all the way back. In fairness the smoke did subside but the power was lacking, I feared the worst and that our slightly sticky valve had stuck once and for all, or on the brighter side it did pass through my mind that it could be the exhaust manifold. We managed to get back to our mooring spot easily enough and Martin from Pride of Nuffield shouted over to us that we should check the weed hatch. Once we were tied up I put her into neutral and gave her some revs and she seemed absolutely fine with no load on so Martin could well be right. He is such a nice chap he was down our weed hatch like a Jack Russell down a rabbit hole and we did indeed have rags around the prop although it would seem not enough to have had the effect it had. Perhaps when we stopped some fell of naturally as when I put her back in gear under load she seemed fine! Let’s hope that is the end of that little drama!

After a little siesta in preparation for this evenings shenanigans the good lady started cooking the food and by 7.30pm we were aboard Pride of Nuffield enjoying a few drinks, laughs and too much food! As the clock struck midnight we toasted the new year in with some Babycham (a bizarre tradition now between us and Pride of Nuffield!) and were treated to some fireworks coming from Gayton Village.

We were pretty determined to spend New Years Eve out on the canal rather than in our marina berth as our friends aboard narrowboat ‘Pride of Nuffield’ had come down this way for the Christmas period. Temperatures overnight had plummeted and the canal was frozen and worse still was that the marina itself had also frozen too and it seemed a lot thicker than the canal was. By lunchtime it was not looking any better so we made the call to give it a go and tentatively nudge forward out of our berth to see just how bad it was. Once I had started going forward I thought ‘I’m not stopping now, lets just go for it!’. Turning was the hardest part but with a bit of forward and backing we broke enough ice to get out and onto the mainline canal.
We only traveled around 30 or so minutes north from Gayton towards Bugbrooke but we had already talked about a spot that would be good which gives plenty of sunshine for our solar panels (if it’s actually sunny), a TV signal and internet – what more do we need apart from beer and wine, and yes we have plenty of that on-board too!

An entertaining and often funny look at our journey chugging along the Grand Union Canal aboard Hannah the Narrowboat with our friends Martin and Sarah aboard their own boat Pride of Nuffield. We travelled from Gayton Marina in Northamptonshire through the Blisworth Tunnel, which is one of the longest in the UK and through Stock Bruerne, Cosgrove, Milton Keynes and on to Leighton Buzzard before turning around and heading back to Gayton Marina. We really do take life slowly on our canal journeys preferring to stop at any spot we feel like rather than pile in the miles! You could probably do this journey in under a week if you wanted but that’s not the way we do things. This light hearted film takes a look at where we went and what we got up to, including a spot of Pokémon hunting!